


Physicals

by thegalrahobbitofplantetgalilfrey



Series: Breathe [7]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Cooking, Fluff, Gen, Hunk giving sage advice, Lance (Voltron) Being an Idiot, PTSD, Wholesome Snacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 22:20:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20015692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegalrahobbitofplantetgalilfrey/pseuds/thegalrahobbitofplantetgalilfrey
Summary: Hunk has never liked physical exams. Space ones are no different. He wasn't expecting Keith to feel the same way, though...





	Physicals

_Everyone up and report to the training deck._

Hunk groaned as Allura’s voice echoed over the intercom system and rolled out of bed, changing into his paladin armor. Sure, training was very important, but did they have to do it _every second_? It was all very well for Keith or Shiro, who were the outdoorsy, ran ten miles before breakfast and didn’t even break a sweat type, but not so good for he or Pidge, who were more of a ‘create a computer program and run it two or three times checking for bugs before breakfast’ type. Lance, he figured, would go to training without too much complaint, but was most likely to sleep in with a face mask and soothing music.

He made his way down to the training deck, where Shiro, Pidge, Allura and Coran were waiting.

“I sent Keith to go get Lance,” Shiro told him, “They’ll be here soon.”

A yelling and the sound of armor hitting armor sounded, and Keith marched in dragging Lance by the collar of his paladin armor. Lance was flailing and smacking Keith’s arm, but the red paladin didn’t seem perturbed. Once inside, he released the blue paladin and went to stand next to Shiro.

Allura seemed to be composing herself and she let out a deep breath. “Paladins, we have often focused on your training as a team. However, it recently occurred to me that perhaps we should train you individually. I want to run physicals, to see what your limits are so that we can begin improvement.”

“Uh-oh,” Lance groaned.

“The fitness gram pacer test,” Pidge intoned, “is a multi—”

“That’s enough, Pidge,” Shiro cut her off, “Thank you.”

Hunk wrinkled his nose. Even worse than training. _Physicals_. He knew what _that_ meant. It meant that he’d be pushed and told that he wasn’t good enough, and he wouldn’t ever be in shape if he didn’t exercise, because for goodness sake, everyone _else_ could run longer, so why couldn’t he? He needed to get into shape, because for stars’ sakes, he couldn’t even do a proper sit up because of his stomach, geeze, he’d _never_ make it to space.

 _Not that I ever wanted to. But look at me now. No one ever thought I’d be here, least of all me, but here we are, defying odds. Maybe physicals won’t be so bad_.

Allura smiled at them like she wasn’t about to dish out a little bit of hellfire punishment. “First, I want to see how long you can run. Laps around the training deck, whatever pace you want to set.”

And so it began. Hunk dropped after five laps. Allura didn’t look disappointed, only nodded thoughtfully. Hunk had a horrible suspicion that he’d be having personal running workouts from now on. Pidge dropped on the seventh lap, panting. Lance called it quits after ten. Shiro made it to fifteen.

And Keith kept on running.

Hunk drank a hydration pouch thoughtfully, watching him run his thirtieth lap. Keith had a lot of endurance. Of course, it probably helped that he’d turned half Galra. Hunk wondered vaguely if all Galra could run this long, and then went off to make breakfast.

He washed his hands and then put some grease in a pan, spreading it around and pouring some vegetables that tasted kind of like onions and peppers—but space of course—into the hot grease, stirring it gently with a wooden spoon. He cracked seven eggs into a bowl and whisked them with salt and pepper, then chopped up a tomato—which apparently grew on other planets besides Earth—and got out some cheese. He stirred the onions and peppers again and saw that the onions had turned slightly translucent. He took the pan off of the heat and poured some of the whisked eggs into the pan, humming contentedly as he put cheese in the center and sprinkled chopped tomato and sautéed peppers and onions on top of the cheese. When the egg looked ready, he flipped the sides over the cheese and turned the whole thing over to cook further. He took it off when he was done and put it on a plate and covered it to keep it warm. Then he poured more egg in and started over.

The kitchen was Hunk’s domain, not the training deck. Sure, anyone would rather have Shiro or Keith or Lance in battle instead of him, but he’d probably cry if any of them tried to cook. And in _his_ personal opinion, keeping the team eating healthy was just as important as keeping them physically healthy with exercise.

Besides, once the war was over, at least he’d have a skill set that he could use in a peace time. You always needed a cook, even if you didn’t need a defender of the universe.

Once all of the omelets were done, Hunk put all of the plates on a tray and carried it to the training deck. “Breakfast!”

Keith was still running.

“Uh, how long has he been running?”

“Fifty laps,” Lance said in an incredibly bored voice, “And we can’t move on until he’s done. What’s for breakfast, I’m starving!”

“Omelets. Shouldn’t he stop? He’s going to hurt himself!”

“Allura thinks he’ll be fine.” Lance snatched a plate. “But he’d better hurry up, because if he keeps showing us up and making us wait longer, I’m going to eat his omelet.”

Personally, Hunk thought he’d be fine with watching Keith run and not doing any running himself, but Lance didn’t like sitting still, so it might be harder for him. Hunk passed out the rest of the plates, keeping Keith’s near him in case Lance tried to follow through on his threat. He sat down next to Pidge, who was working on her hacking program, trying to increase the number of passwords that it could try in a second.

“Did you try making a double program?”

“What?”

“You know. Make a program on top of this program that runs through all of the combinations starting at the last one and working backwards. It’ll take less time, like two people running to meet each other in the middle of something instead of one waiting at the end and the other one trying to get all the way across.”

Pidge nodded thoughtfully. “That’s tricky coding, though, because I have to know all of the combinations and then work backwards. So first the combined program will have to calculate all possible combinations and then feed them into the separate parts that run the passwords through the system. With simple, four digit passwords—”

“It’ll be faster to just run the first program, because that’s basic, and there’s not too many combinations, comparatively. But with the Galra language and characters—”

“It might be faster to calculate them all and then run them from both directions,” Pidge finished, “I can try it.”

She went back to her laptop, and Hunk kept watching Keith. “How many has he gotten to?”

“Sixty,” Lance called grumpily, “He’ll probably hit one-hundred then stop as Allura praises his stamina and awards him a medal in a grand ceremony before he charges off and single-handedly defeats Zarkon by challenging him to a death round of running.”

What actually happened was much less dramatic. At eighty laps, Keith tripped and fell. He rolled over onto his back, panting and looking up at the ceiling. Shiro helped him up.

“That was very impressive,” Allura told him.

He gave her a quiet, slightly confused look. “I could have kept going.”

“Yes, I’m sure you could have, but—”

“No, I could have, I really could have, I _know_ I could’ve—”

“Keith, calm down. It’s alright. I’m sure you could have, but we need to move on. Hunk made breakfast. Eat, and then we’ll go on to the next task.”

Keith took his omelet and scarfed it down. He looked winded, but not tired. Hunk had a feeling that he definitely _could_ have kept going. He grinned at Keith.

“That was really cool. That you kept going. Like, how do you have that much stamina?”

Keith met his gaze steadily, coolly, but his eyes looked like a caged animal’s—trapped. “I can run for three days without stopping,” he said quietly and with absolute certainty.

Then he followed Allura to her next exercise.

“I’ve approximated a healthy weight for each of you, heavier than your average, but hopefully not your maximum weight capacity. I want to see how many times you can bench press it.”

Pidge failed after five. Lance gave up after eight. Hunk managed fifteen, grateful that his arms, at least, were in shape. Allura seemed fairly impressed, and maybe a bit surprised. Shiro made it to twenty, which didn’t surprise Hunk. The man’s arms were like bazookas.

Keith kept going.

“Holy cow,” Lance muttered, rubbing his own arms, “Does he know how to take a break? Do you think he knows the definition of overkill?”

“He strives for excellence,” Pidge said with a shrug, pushing her glasses up, “I wish that Allura didn’t put so much emphasis on physical strength. After all, that’s not a battle I’m likely to win. I’d really rather she test how smart we are, how good we are at critical thinking.”

Lance snorted. “How do you suppose she would do that? Give us a Calculus test?”

“Yes,” Pidge said seriously, “Although, I think you’re setting the bar a bit low, aren’t you? I mean, if Calculus challenges you, then that’s fine, I guess, but we’re trying to _push_. You know, test the limits.”

Lance’s ears burned bright red. “Not all of us are geniuses, Pidge. Some of us only know the amount of math required to fly a plane. Which, I might add, is a lot more math than the average human knows.”

“Well, sure, but not all of us are gifted athletes, either, yet we’re still being pushed to do things more athletic than we’re used to—and Garrison cadets are more physically fit than the average human, too. There’s a reason I could only lift that weight five times, and it was less than the weight that _you_ had. If _I’m_ going to be taxed with tasks more than I’m physically used to, I don’t see why _you_ shouldn’t be taxed with tasks more than you’re mentally used to.”

“We’re not taking a Calculus test,” Lance said firmly, “Besides,” he added with a grin, raising his voice slightly, “It’d be too much for Keith. He’s a dropout, remember? It wouldn’t be fair.”

“Lance, I’m going to throw you out of an airlock,” Keith said evenly, still pushing the weight up, “And I won’t even feel the least bit bad about it.”

Lance wrinkled his nose. “I’d like to see you try, washout.”

“With the amount he’s benching and for how long, I wouldn’t challenge him,” Pidge said grimly, pushing up her glasses.

Lance excused himself.

Coran floated off to check on some maintenance issue, and Pidge went back to working on her hacking program, creating, Hunk noted with a bit of pride, a program like he’d suggested. Allura and Shiro were quietly discussing nearby planets, and which could be freed the most easily and were most likely to help freeing the other planets.

Hunk watched Keith, wondering how his arms—which were a lot thinner than Hunk’s arms—could possibly support that much weight and for this long. So he was the only one watching when the weight slipped from Keith’s sweaty hands and landed square on his chest.

Keith’s breath was expelled in a _whoosh_ , and he wheezed, struggling for air. Shiro, Pidge and Allura hadn’t noticed, but Hunk ran over, straining to lift the weight from his teammate. Keith pushed too, and between the two of them, they managed to get it off and back onto its rest. Shiro, Pidge and Allura had finally realized what had happened and crowded around them.

“Are you alright, Keith?”

Keith nodded, still fighting to push air back into his lungs. “Fine.” He sat up. “Sorry.”

“Are accidents the only way that you’ll stop your exercise?” Pidge questioned.

Keith didn’t reply, only shifted uncomfortably on the bench.

Allura examined the weight bar and the digital record it kept. “One-hundred? Keith, I must say, you’re exceeding all of my expectations. Next time we’ll add more weight to the bar and see how well you can do. I have a feeling you’re a lot stronger than I originally thought.”

“No!” Keith burst.

Allura blinked. “I’m sorry?”

Keith got up, storming towards the door. “I’m done. I’m not doing any more physicals.”

“But Keith, we’ve only just start—”

“NO!”

Allura took a step back, startled, and Hunk watched with his mouth hanging open as Keith pushed out the door and stomped down the hallway.

“Well,” Allura said in a meek voice, “I suppose a break wouldn’t hurt. You’ve all been doing very well. I’ll call you back later.”

“I think maybe not,” Pidge replied, “You’re not going to have any luck with Keith. He’s more stubborn then a dog with its chew toy.”

Hunk shrugged. “I’m down for no more physicals. Yes, please.”

Allura shot him a dirty look. “I’m giving you a break. Don’t push it.”

Hunk decided to leave before she changed her mind.

He wandered down towards the kitchen, wondering where Keith had gone. Probably the training deck. He liked it there, for some unfathomable reason. But as he passed the training deck, he could see that it was empty. Hunk frowned. Where had he gone?

The answer to that question came with angry cursing from the kitchen.

“Stupid machine!”

“Oh, boy,” Hunk muttered, hovering near the door, “Do I want to go in? On the one hand, angry Keith. On the other hand, I want a snack if Allura’s going to make us keep exercising. Urrrrrrrgh… ah, okay, fine.”

Hunk edged in. Keith had food goo in his bangs, and he was glaring angrily at the food goo machine, whose hose was on the ground. “Problem?”

“It shot goo at me,” Keith grumbled.

“Yeah, it does that sometimes. Leftover Galra glitch.” Hunk picked the hose up and retracted it back into the wall, handing Keith a napkin. “You’ve got goo in your hair.”

While Keith swiped at his bangs with the napkins, Hunk washed his hands and started pulling out butter and a pink flour-like substance, putting the butter in a pan on the stove but not turning it on.

“Need a snack?”

Keith’s shoulders hunched, reflexively, Hunk guessed. That was a strange idea, being embarrassed to need to eat. “Sure. I guess. I can—”

“Sit down. I’ve got it.”

“You don’t need to—”

“Sit down. Frankly, I’ve got the feeling you’re not exactly big on cooking.”

Keith had the grace to look embarrassed. “Not exactly.”

“Right, but I _like_ cooking. For me, and for other people. It’s fun. Especially when I’m going to share it with someone. So sit down.” Hunk handed him a bag. “What do you think, sugar?”

Keith smelled and tasted a pinch. “Sugar,” he agreed.

“Okay, good. I still don’t know what all of these are. I’ve been growing yeast—”

“You’ve been _growing_ it?” Keith hopped up onto the counter, sitting cross-legged.

“Get your dirty boots off of the kitchen counter, please.”

Keith shifted his feet off of the counter. Good enough. Hunk could always wipe it down later. “You’ve been growing yeast?”

Hunk nodded, pulling a small package of meat out of the refrigerator. He started chopping it with a knife into tiny pieces. “Yeah, that’s how I can make bread. But I don’t know about a lot of things in this kitchen. They could be anything, could even be poisonous to humans. I don’t want another skultrite cookie episode. So I’ll stick with what I know, based on tests Coran, Pidge and I ran.”

Hunk started browning the meat in a separate pan, then pulled out a mixing bowl, measuring in salt, butter, the probably-sugar, pink flour, what he was pretty sure was baking powder and a splash of milk.

“Milk and butter are thanks to Kaltenecker,” he remarked to Keith, and went back to the meat, giving it a stir to keep the bottom from burning. Then he turned back to his mixing bowl, stirring and kneading with his hands until he had a dough. The meat was browned, and he turned off the stove before turning on the oven and making circles with the dough, putting them on a cookie sheet.

“You know, I never liked physicals,” he told Keith as he cut the shapes and put them on the pan, “They always seemed like an excuse to make fun of me. To remind me how out-of-shape I was.” He shrugged. “They told me I wouldn’t ever get up into space because I wasn’t in shape. I guess they were wrong. The teasing doesn’t bother me anymore, but it used to, back when I was small. It used to hurt a lot, when my classmates would call me slow, or fat. I _hated_ it. Before the Garrison, I would go home crying after the days when we had physicals.” Hunk felt sick at the memory, but he kept talking, a small, homesick smile pushing at the corners of his mouth. “My mom, though, she told me that the other kids made fun of me and made me feel useless because they were scared. She said that they were scared of what I’d become, scared of the time when I’d be better than all of them, so they made me feel helpless while they could. I think that’s something that pretty much all moms tell their kids about bullies, though.”

Keith shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”

Hunk put the biscuits in the oven, set a timer, and turned the stove back on to let the butter melt. “I hate physicals because I’m not athletic, and that’s all that seems important to everyone.” He turned to face Keith. “But I get the feeling that’s not the reason _you_ hate them.”

The kitchen fell dead silent, the only sound the hiss of the butter as it melted in the pan. Keith looked like he might like to make a run for it, but was being pulled in by the idea of food. Hunk didn’t push him. He just waited expectantly, turning to add the pink flour to the butter. He heard a sigh, barely audible over the hiss of the grease.

“Did… did Pidge tell you what happened back on Earth?”

Hunk whisked the butter and flour. He had a feeling it would be easier on Keith if he weren’t looking him in the eye. “She didn’t go into details.”

“Right, because she doesn’t know the details. Shiro kind of knows a little bit. Allura knows a little bit.”

Hunk’s eyebrows shot up in surprise at that, but he kept stirring, whisking the flour and grease into a smooth gravy albeit a _pink_ gravy. Of all the people on the Castle, Allura had always seemed the least likely to be able to get Keith to open up. Shiro, he’d figured. But _Allura_?

“I… well… I was kind of forced to run. To see how long I could.”

Hunk glanced at Keith, pouring the browned meat into the gravy and turning the heat on ‘low.’ “For three days?” That was how long he’d said earlier—it might explain why he’d been so confident that he could, if he’d done it before.

Keith gave a barely-perceptible nod. “No food. Or water. Or stopping.”

“For _three days_? What if you just stopped, what could she do?”

“Electroshock therapy.”

Keith said it like a joke, but Hunk saw his face tighten, forgotten pain returning to his eyes. “Oh,” Hunk said quietly.

Keith went back into cross-legged position, hands on his ankles and shoulders hunched. Hunk decided not to reprimand him for his boots this time. “Yeah. Something—something similar happened with a weight, she pushed it on me and said ‘see how long you can hold it up.’”

Hunk shuddered as he took down three plates and a bowl from a cabinet. “And those are the exact physical tests that Allura first off the bat decided to try. _Stars_. That is the _worst_ coincidence.”

“Yeah.” Keith went quiet, thoughtful. “Hunk? Do you think… maybe the reason… you know, for all of that… do you think it was because Sanda was afraid of what I’d become? Like your mom said?”

Hunk froze mid-stir of the gravy. He set the whisk down and turned back to Keith, leaning on the counter. “Keith… my mom said that about bullies at school. And she was right. The kids at my old school fell in line and stopped teasing me when I was accepted to the Garrison, although there were bullies to deal with there, too. But Sanda…”

The timer for the biscuits went off suddenly, startling them both, and Hunk slipped on oven mitts, pulling the biscuits out of the oven and setting the pan on a cooling rack, using a spatula to get them off and onto a plate. They were pink, a little bit lighter than the gravy, though. He poured the gravy into the bowl and set the plates down on the counter, sitting on a bar stool. Keith hopped off of the counter, sitting on a barstool opposite him. He tentatively reached for the biscuits, and Hunk nudged the plate towards him, taking a couple himself and spooning gravy onto his plate.

Keith scarfed down a biscuit in two bites and glanced at the plate, as if wondering how many he could eat without being rude.

“They taste pretty good if you put gravy on them,” Hunk offered.

Keith dipped a biscuit in the gravy bowl and took a bite. He nodded to Hunk and then dipped the biscuit in the gravy again. Hunk let out a bark of startled laughter, making Keith jump.

“Keith! No double-dipping, you heathen!”

Keith offered an embarrassed grin and spooned out the contaminated gravy onto his plate. “Sorry.”

“I’m guessing that you have a pretty high metabolism,” Hunk said thoughtfully.

“What?”

“Metabolism. How fast your body converts food into energy. Mine’s pretty slow,” he said with a rueful laugh, “But I’m willing to bet that yours is pretty fast. I mean, that would explain how you have the energy to run—but it also means that you need to eat more if you’re going to pull stunts like running eighty laps, or benching one-hundred times. Your body makes energy fast, but it also burns it fast. We can ask Coran to do a test, if you want.”

At the word “test,” Hunk thought he might have seen Keith flinch—but he must have imagined it, because Keith went back to eating his biscuits unconcernedly. “I guess.”

“Do you get cold, up here?”

“Sometimes. I mean, it was cold in the desert at night, but it was pretty hot in the day, which was mostly when I was up and out, so I might just be used to the heat.”

“Maybe,” Hunk said thoughtfully, “but maybe, if your metabolism _is_ faster, you might just not be eating enough to keep your body heat up because of how fast you burn food. You should eat more snacks,” he advised, “Or eat more at mealtimes. It’ll be good for you. You’re kind of… small. No offense intended.”

“None taken.” They sat in silence for a few minutes, then Keith piped up. “What were you going to say? Before the timer went off?”

“What? Oh. Yeah. Right. Um, well, I think… well with Sanda, she was… she was basically one big bully, to a greater, more drastic degree. So… yes. I think she was scared of you. Of what you’d go on to become or what you’d go on to do. So she tried to make you feel helpless and small.”

“It worked,” Keith said bitterly.

Hunk hummed thoughtfully, thinking. “You’re not helpless and small. Well, I mean, physically you’re kind of small, but not… you know.”

“I know. And I don’t _feel_ helpless or small, most of the time, but whenever I think about her, or when something like what happened this morning happens… I just feel like I’m there again.” Keith looked at Hunk with desperation in his eyes. “You know?”

Hunk put another biscuit on Keith’s plate. Focusing even a little bit of his attention on something else, like eating, would make him feel better. Either that, or eating would make him throw up from anxiety, but that was a risk Hunk was willing to take.

“Have you tried counting to ten and taking deep breaths to calm down?”

Keith snorted, the biscuit halfway to his mouth. “Seriously? Counting to ten?”

“Well, have you tried it?” Hunk persisted.

“No,” Keith admitted.

“Something else my mom used to say. Count to ten, take a deep breath, and if that doesn’t work, do it again. Think happy.”

“ _Think happy_?!”

Hunk grinned. “Sounds dumb, I know. But it works, it really does. Here, hold out your fist, thumb under the fingers.”

Keith did, frowning in confusion. Hunk copied him, holding out his fist.

“Right, your thumb is the emotional part of your brain—the part that makes you freak out. The fingers on top are the logical part of your brain. Right now, they’re in charge. But when the emotional part of your brain gets going, it heats up, and heat makes the logical part flip up.” Hunk removed his fingers from his thumb. “Now only the emotional part is in charge, and you’re freaking out, having a panic attack.”

“Is this true?”

“I mean, it’s not exactly the most scientific explanation, and there’s faults to it, but if we went into science, I think you’d get lost pretty fast.”

“Probably,” Keith agreed.

“Right, well, you’ve got to get the logical part back down, right? So, deep breaths in, cooling the system, now it flips back over.” Hunk pulled his fingers back over his thumb to illustrate. “Think about something else, about something you like—think about flying, about taking your lion out. It’ll calm you down faster. Then you just remember that you’re a freaking _paladin of Voltron_ , a great swordsman, and an overall pretty cool guy, and that means what?”

“That I’m not small and insignificant?” Keith guessed.

“Bingo. _Definitely_ not small and insignificant.”

“Okay. Count to ten, breathe in, think happy thoughts, and it’ll be okay, then? Faith, hope, trust and pixie dust, and I can fly?”

Hunk shrugged passively, ignoring the sarcasm. “It won’t fix everything, but it’s a good place to start.”

Allura’s voice crackled over the intercom. _All paladins, please report back to the training deck_.

“She doesn’t want to hurt you,” Hunk said, watching Keith carefully.

Keith let out a deep breath. “I know.”

“You gonna be okay?”

“Are _you_?”

Hunk chuckled. “No, but I’m not mentally traumatized by exercise, I just hate it. Stop dodging the question. Will you be okay?”

Keith closed his eyes, took in another deep breath, opened his eyes and nodded. “I’ll be okay.”

“Good. Remember—”

“Think happy thoughts?”

Hunk laughed. “Yeah. That.”

 _Lance, Keith, Hunk, report to the training deck or I’m going to send Shiro after you_.

Hunk gestured to the door. “After you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I think I like writing Hunk's perspective. I can waste whole paragraphs on him making an omelet.


End file.
